A capable portrait of grief, longing, and second chances.
A novel chronicles the life of a young man searching for closure from an unfulfilling past.
Lonely at age 30, the narrator faces a moment of crisis when both of his parents die in quick succession. On her deathbed, his mother confesses something he already knew: As a young wife, she fell in love with a woman, but chose to stay with her family. When the narrator’s father dies unexpectedly in his sleep soon after, everyone treats the event like the ultimate confirmation of the couple’s love for each other. The narrator has no such illusions, and relates these incidents in a tone both wry and tender. But having received $10,000 in cash from his father as a parting gift, along with the command “Don’t spend it well,” he decides that it’s time to face his own demons. Interspersed with these family sketches are memories from 10 to 15 years ago, when the narrator’s family moved to London and he became best friends with an impulsive teenager named Daniel Wright. Another figure haunts these reflections: Gabrielle Desidéria, one of Daniel’s best friends, whom the narrator loved for five years before gathering the courage to ask her out. But as he continues to darkly hint, “Daniel brought her to me and then he took her away” just a few months after they became a couple. Now, a decade older and world-weary, the narrator arranges to reunite with a married Gabrielle in London. In Amouzegar’s (A Dark Sunny Afternoon, 2016, etc.) tale, the narrator’s work at a secret government agency is an odd and unnecessary subplot. And the novel’s tone seems more fitting for a protagonist of 60 rather than 30. Nevertheless, the primary plots sing with nostalgia and regret, beautifully capturing the narrator’s struggles with his own vulnerability. The author’s touch is light as his characters deny their feelings, to themselves and to one another, until the right circumstances finally allow them to speak. But even as it presents such scenes, the story challenges the idea that people are ever handed the perfect moments to create the lives they want.
A capable portrait of grief, longing, and second chances.Pub Date: June 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62868-206-9
Page Count: 230
Publisher: Fountain Blue Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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